Will Jio's 4G feature phone be as disruptive as its pricing strategy?
Reliance Jio sets the next stage of a market share war in telecom with plans to launch a 4G feature phone, all eyes are set on what Mukesh Ambani will unravel at the group’s annual general meeting in Mumbai on Friday. The question on everyone’s mind is: Will the launch be as disruptive as its pricing strategy when it began operations last year? And will it have any serious impact on the existing players? The answer is buried in the current market scenario.With a mobile density of over 92 per cent, the country is a mature telecom market. So, any new player has to grab customers from incumbent operators. That is what Reliance Jio has successfully done to grab over 117 million customers — that is, 9.94 per cent of total subscriber base (till March end) and nearly half of the country’s smartphone users. But,net addition per month has been slowing to half from 8-10 million earlier. The initial blast of subscribers were drawn by the promise of free service. From Septembe...